Teaching for Tomorrow
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 1 of 2
Holmes is a big man and self-confident in a reserved way as he walks these halls. He is also a kids' man. Holmes has worked with children almost his entire adult life whether as center director of Neighborhood House, director of Ebony Expressions, assistant principal at West or principal of Wright Middle School before returning to West as its principal.
As Holmes greets the students as they return, it is readily obvious that he is sincerely interested in each of the students regardless of their background. Holmes is a principal for the global village.
"The kids here are representative of 110 different countries," Holmes reflected as we sat in his office at West. "We have kids from 110 different countries not to mention the ethnic groups such as African American and Southeast Asian and Latino" primarily Mexican and Puerto Rican kids. We also have a few Native American kids. This is really an international student population. So the cultural differences are huge, religious, political and cultural. We have a huge range of students."
Holmes and his staff have taken several measures to make sure that West is responsive to the diverse needs of its students. One of the major efforts has been to create small learning communities within West's massive walls. The small learning communities are basically the creation of four smaller "high schools" within West. So while West continues to have the economies of scale of a large institution, its subunits have been poised to be more responsive to student needs.
They just completed a $500,000 three-year grant to begin the process and are part of a $5.5 million grant that was submitted to the U.S. Dept. of Education on behalf of the Madison Metropolitan School District's four traditional high schools. Holmes is optimistic they will receive the grant, which would give West $300,000 a year over five years to complete the transition.
"We've already put the foundation in place," Holmes explained. "There are still four area principals, but they are smaller learning community principals. They have students grade 9-12. So we already have the foundation in place. We are just going to continue with developing the model in terms of how the building is laid out. The whole idea of smaller learning communities is that kids don't fall through the cracks. We have cadres of teachers. We have support services and counselors who stick with the kids over the course of their four years. They get to know the kids and what types of challenges they face. The whole idea is to be able to provide more support and intervention. It's almost a school within a school. They are smaller communities within the school that are more close-knit."
Not only do the smaller learning communities allow the staff to build stronger relationships with the students, but it also allows the staff to build stronger working relationships with each other. "What we have are core teams at grades nine and ten, which are teams of teachers across content areas who come together to do planning and discussions around students, curriculum, instructional strategies and ways to meet the needs of kids that we hadn't had before," Holmes said. "That teacher collaboration is really an elementary and middle school model. The high school is more about trying to make sure the kids get their curriculum. It's always been more about the curriculum than it was making sure that we do wrap-around support services for kids and look for instructional strategies that are going to be better for educating all kids."
And due to the vast diversity of the student population -- culturally, ethnically, economically and politically -- the West High staff is trying to make the educational experience of the students as individualized as possible. "What we try to do is individualize educational plans," Holmes said. "We try to meet kids where they are in the classroom. That is another piece of what we are trying to do. We try to create as many personalized learning environments as possible. We create tutorial supports with peer tutors, with mentors and with support from the University of Wisconsin and Edgewood. We try to create as many opportunities as we can for individualized instruction and support as possible. That's really the way to do it. Every kid -- whether you are the most talented and gifted in math and science or you are a kid who struggles with basic language -- comes with a different set of skills, background, knowledge and ability and we try to individualize the approach as much as possible in a school of over 2,100 students."
One of the biggest challenges for West is ensuring that the educational environment is challenging for all students regardless of their background. While West has consistently graduated a high number of National Merit Scholarship finalists, it has also experienced the high drop-out rates of some segments of its population. "Our job is to try to provide as much challenge and academic rigor as we can while we make sure that we're not losing kids on the bottom end," Holmes emphasized. "That's a huge job. We don't want our top-end kids to get frustrated and feel like we aren't meeting their needs. At the same time, we don't want to be so focused on our top-end and academically-oriented kids that we lose the kids who are struggling and need support, perhaps some remediation and some skills development to help them catch up. This model helps address a lot of that."
Relatively recent research has shown that extracurricular activities -- whether they are competing on the football team or on the math team -- are important for students' personal and academic growth. When economically-challenged students don't participate in these activities -- many call them co-curricular activities -- because they need to work or take care of younger siblings before and after school, they are in a position where they can developmentally fall behind other students.
Holmes has leveled this important playing field at West. "That's the reason I went to the one-hour lunch program so that kids -- over lunch -- would have access to teachers," Holmes explained. "They would have access to other adults in order to develop relationships and to engage in activities. Every kid in school has an hour over lunch when they can be involved in some type of activity. The one-hour lunch is for kids who are marginalized because of the structure of their social condition or whatever is going on at home. We allow opportunities for access. That's what I try to do in terms of how I create the structure for the school, provide as many opportunities for access and support as possible."
Probably one of the things that is most resistant to change is how race plays out in the academic arena. Holmes admits that West still has a lot of work to do in this area. "I think our teachers are more cognizant and more conscientious based on the discussions the district has had over the last several years," Holmes said. "It started with Glenn Singleton and we have done things with Gloria Ladson-Billings over the course of the last 8-10 years. It's been that long since we've had discussions about race and the role that race plays in the educational system in Madison. I think people are at least cognizant or aware of racial issues and what role that plays in the classroom. Has it translated over into practice? Not yet, not completely. But that is the next step and we try to figure out how teachers' practice can reflect what we are learning about learning styles and what kids from different cultural backgrounds need in order to be successful in school."
Next issue: The fast pace of change inside and outside the classroom.
September 5, 2007 Archives